Woodlands Dark And Days Bewitched

Singular Rural

Woodlands Dark 
And Days Bewitched
USA 2021
Directed by Kier-La Janisse
Severin Films Blu Ray Zone A/B/C

Just a little shout out to a newish (at time of viewing/writing, I'm still not all the way through the box) three and a quarter hour folk horror documentary called Woodlands Dark And Days Bewitched. I watched this as part of a project I believe it kickstarted, as the first disc in Severin’s humongous, ‘pricey but worth it’ Blu Ray box, All The Haunts Be Ours - A Compendium Of Folk Horror (although you can also purchase the documentary feature from them as a stand alone edition). The film is written and directed by Kier-La Janisse and I’ve enthused about her on a number of occasions on this blog, most notably in my reviews of a documentary movie made about her called Celluloid Horror (reviewed here) and also the absolutely brilliant, essential, part reference text and part autobiographical tome which she wrote partially as a reaction to that title, called House Of Psychotic Women (which I reviewed here). 

The documentary originally started life with the director wanting to make a short, accompanying featurette on folk horror to accompany Severin’s Blu Ray release of Blood On Satan’s Claw from a few years ago but, as she started researching and putting it together, she realised that there was more to the topic than just a select set of UK folk horror references and the featurette project was dropped in favour of a full and, breezily paced but actually somewhat essential documentary feature. You can just tell by some of the things the great lady has chosen to throw at this that many researchers are going to be taking elements of this for their own books, articles and documentaries for many years to come.

Strangely enough... and due to something that the animator of the title sequence let slip (the same animator who directed Borley Rectory, reviewed here and who animated many interesting sequences for this movie), I’m not sure this is as complete a coincidence as I originally thought when I watched this... the opening titles took me straight back to my childhood by using a slower cover version of the same rhyme set as song of the famous verse that used to open the old kid’s UK TV show Magpie in the 1970s. So that was a nice touchstone for me, so to speak. The film opens with voices of various of the people interviewed here trying to define folk horror and what it is to them, before the structure of the piece reveals itself and we go on to six chapters. 

Chapter one is entitled The Holy Trinity and it looks at a famous group of films which, yeah okay, certainly seem to define folk horror to many although, if you know me and are a regular reader here, you’ll probably figure out that only one of those three would make it through my simple definition of what belongs in the horror genre. Those three are Witchfinder General, Blood On Satan’s Claw (reviewed here) and the original version of The Wicker Man. I especially liked the connection made in this segment between the cult of youths in Blood On Satan’s Claw and what it was saying about the British establishment at the time the movie was made, with its built in critique of ‘the youth of today’. 

The second chapter, Who Is This Who Is Coming? Signposts of British Folk Horror, takes a more in depth look at the various manifestations of the British offerings over the years, with a nice emphasis on the ghost stories of M. R. James (who seems to be having a revival of late, at least in terms of the 1970s BBC adaptations of the annual Christmas Ghost Stories he used to write at his university) and, of course, the continuing influence of Nigel Kneale, particularly in reference to such works as his third and fourth Quatermass serials and shows such as Beasts. They’ve even got a nice couple of clips from the Doctor Who story The Daemons (which I reviewed here).

Chapter 3, We Don’t Go Back- Paganism and Witchcraft looks at various movies documenting witchcraft over the years while Chapter 4, Call Me From The Valley - American Folk Horror, looks at US colonial history, native American Indians, backwoods people and aspects of the Southern Gothic... not to mention the way in which some of the tales of H. P. Lovecraft dovetail into folk traditions.

The fifth chapter, All The Haunts Be Ours - Folk Horror Around The World looks at various internationally produced folk horror films and their legacy, including such countries as Australia, Poland, Guatemala, France, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Japan, Italy, Venezuela and Brazil and, I’m glad to say a few of my favourites like Onibaba, Kuroneko, Kwaidan and the Yokai Monster myths were included, as the director tries to demonstrate (and rightly so, as far as I’m concerned) how the genre is actually existing in a much wider geographic space than the casual observer may at first imagine. The movie then ends with a sixth chapter called Folk Horror Revival which highlights some of the more recent entries that have taken up the same themes, such as The VVitch and Midsommar. 

Ultimately, this is a really fun and informed movie. There are a range of interviewees including two of my favourites, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Jonathan Rigby... along with a whole host of people such as familiar names and faces like Jasper Sharp, Samm Deighan and Kat Ellinger, plus some not so expected but very welcome people such as Alice Lowe. She even utilises famous actors Linda Hayden and Ian Ogilvy to read various bits of verse in voice over during certain sequences of the film. 

And as we’re treated to a range of historical facts and the way the various movies highlighted draw from some of them, some interesting themes and definitions start to come to light... although, I have to disagree a little with the guy who says folk horror is not a genre at all. As far as I’m concerned it’s a very specific sub-genre but, then again, I may be accused of looking at things in a more black and white manner than many. 

What stuck with me, though, are themes like... it’s often an outsider coming into a small or rural community and discovering or finding themselves at odds with an established belief system and that it’s often about a clash between ‘the old ways’ and modern technology (with modern technology usually crumbling in defeat against the long standing traditions). And, especially summed up with the question... “What if the old ways were right?”... something I think the character Edward Woodward played in The Wicker Man may have certainly had a strong opinion about. There’s also a nice observation that the reasons a lot (not all) of folk horror succeeds in unsettling the viewer is because they’re more about tapping the fear of what you don’t see but what’s suggested, quite often.

So yeah, I think Woodlands Dark And Days Bewitched is a splendid documentary, actually. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I think some people will be unfamiliar with a lot of the films and books included here and come out of this thing with a long list. I’ve heard there have been some complaints as to what’s not included but, come on people, this kind of exploration is never going to have time to included everything and, yeah, you’re getting three and a quarter hours of collective knowledge right here in the form of an entertaining presentation, all bound together with a nice score by Jim Williams, which is also included on a CD in Severin’s All The Haunts Be Ours box. I think Kier-La Janisse did a wonderful job with this one and, like I said, I suspect it will be getting a lot of shout outs for years to come. So if you’re at all into the idea of exploring this topic, this is the baseline film from which you should start... and I’m looking forward to exploring the specific films included in this boxed edition (many of which I haven’t seen, as it happens). So yeah, well done to Kier-La and also much thanks to Severin for enabling projects like this one... a great service to the arts, for sure.

One last tip before I finish though... it always pays to read the t-shirts of some of the people being interviewed on these things. My world is a richer place now that I know there was a 14th Wine and Film Festival in one country... this sounds like a great idea.